How would you like the chance to live, work and play with one of Australia’s best craft breweries? What if you could hang out with two of the country’s top brewers while they covered all accommodation and travel costs too? We can all agree that that would be pretty sweet.

It seems I am not alone in my softness. Research released by Commsec shows that beer consumption in Australia has hit a 66-year low, with the apparent consumption of alcohol consumed in the form of beer falling from 4.31 litres of pure alcohol per person (aged 15 years or more) to 4.14 litres in 2011/12. Consumption of full-strength beer fell from 3.55 litres to 3.41 litres; mid strength was steady at 0.57 litres; and low strength fell from 0.19 litres to 0.16 litres.

At the beer hall where I drank last night, it’s easy to imagine a robot doing the barman’s job. There are 25 beers on tap, each with a brief story recited by the knowledgeable man behind the taps. Sample tastes are offered, credit cards are taken and swiped, foam is skimmed off the full glasses, and friendly words are exchanged during and after the transactions. Add in the ability to call 911 or fire a taser at a nasty drunk, and you’ve covered every bartender duty except going home with a customer to have sex.

Under “Porter”, we have the bizarre claim that this was the beer that “created the first commercial brewing industry in the world in the early 18th century”. Eh? Whatever definition of “industry” you want to use, I think it’s undeniable that the widespread use of hops in Northern Europe from the end of the 13th century onwards turned brewing from a largely artisanal occupation into a proper industry, 400 and more years before the arrival of porter

That question is really the whole point of the 3-tier system and the reason distributors exist. Distributors create a middle-man so that Budweiser can’t directly buy up all the taps at a bar creating what is known as a tied house, where the bar is tied to the brewery. Tied houses were standard before prohibition and one of the main reasons for the creation of the 3-tier system.. Now that’s not to say that this type of crap doesn’t happen at all.

Karen could then take on of the world’s most expensive beers and make one of the world’s most expensive beer paintings: a bottle of Utopia goes for about $190. The important question is rather or not you’d be able to use such a fantastic and rare beer for art instead of lip smacking consumption?

Fair enough – fruit beers have always existed, after all, and all Molson Coors are trying to do is diversify their product range. Fruit-based beers were some of the original brews that humans created; our grunting, fur-covered ancestors grimly mulching handfuls of berries until they fermented and became alcoholic.

So Saturday’s Black Beer Tasting at Carwyn Cellars was a fine way to ease my transition from Montreal to Melbourne. The event, hosted by Miro Bellini, had been advertised to include beers from five different breweries, three of which are in or near Montreal, one of which was Les Trois Mousquetaires.